


xxxHOLiC Alternate Universes

by rallamajoop



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Hollywood, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 12,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short snippets from various xxxHOLiC/Tsubasa alternate universes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pirates I

**Author's Note:**

> Despite CLAMP all but underlining the fact that there are infinite alternate universe versions of all their characters out there (See: Tsubasa), it occurred to me a while back that there is a _woeful_ lack of AU fic in this fandom. So, in my own attempt to fix this, I posted a request meme over on LiveJournal prompting people to send me ideas for xxxHOLiC AUs, with the plan that I'd write fic for any that grabbed me.
> 
> I think I had in mind that I'd turn out a couple of short, maybe drabble length fic-bits. Instead, I wound up with _eight_ different worlds, none less than several hundred words long, and some with multiple scenes. I should really know better than to be surprised when that happens by now .

* * *

**  
Pirates (Scene 1)**

It said a lot about how much Doumeki had enjoyed his voyage to date that coming under attack from the famed Dread Pirate Yuuko, terror of the seven seas (etc, etc) was the undisputed highlight so far. He didn't regret surrendering, not when he knew what happened to everyone who didn't, but the first mate – the only human other than Captain Yuuko herself he'd yet seen among the pirates – had taken some kind of offense at his behaviour. Said first mate had been staring at Doumeki through the bars of his prison cell ever since throwing him down here. Maybe he thought his captive needed guarding. Or maybe he was looking for an excuse to revoke his hostage status and have him thrown overboard. Doumeki thought he made a rather odd sort of pirate.

And while he may have had no qualms about staring, he was less pleased by others staring back. "Just what do you think you're looking at?"

"That's not a parrot," said Doumeki, conversationally.

"It's a _pipe fox_ ," the pirate snapped back at him, as if this was something he had to explain a lot and was thoroughly sick of being asked. "Why does everyone think I'm supposed to have a parrot instead? Do _parrots_ breath fire?"

That, Doumeki decided, had to be a rhetorical question. "Do you really need that eye patch, or is it just for show?"

"That. Is _none_ ," the pirate hissed. "Of your business."

"Aren't you supposed to say 'Arr' more?" Doumeki asked, strangely fascinated.

"Have you _missed_ the part where we could have you walk the plank if you don't behave?" said the pirate angrily. "We could have you tortured to death! You can't even _begin_ to imagine the kind of tortures the Captain can come up with!"

"But I surrendered," said Doumeki. "Even pirates are supposed to treat their captives humanely. And you're supposed to feed me as well."

"You're going to be on a bread and water diet if you're _lucky!_ " snapped the pirate. "And you're going to be fighting rats even for that much privilege!"

Doumeki peered around the other corners of the hold. "Are all those barrels full of rum?"

"Don't talk to me about rum," said the pirate, with a long suffering look.


	2. Pirates II

**Pirates (Scene 2)**

_(Sometime after scene 1)_

Up close, the costume favoured by Captain Yuuko was composed of so many tassels, beads and frills that it was amazing she didn't jingle more obviously every time she moved. They gave Doumeki the vague impression that if you undid the wrong catch, the whole thing could fall apart like a matchstick house. Possibly, that was the intended impression. More possibly, this was not a wise train of thought to be entertaining when the Dread Pirate herself was leaning into your face.

"Well then, Mr Doumeki!" the captain boomed, with a truly wicked smile. "Do you have the courage and fortitude to follow orders and stay true in the face of danger and almost certain death?"

Doumeki had to take a moment or two to parse this statement. "Sure."

"Wait, _what!?_ " Watanuki burst out. "You… you can't put him on the crew!"

"Oho?" said Yuuko. "Is that _mutinous_ talk I be hearing from ye? Ye've surely been at sea enough months to be remembering the Captain's word is law, savy?"

"Aye Aye, Captain," said Watanuki weakly.

Watanuki watched his captain flounce away up to the main deck until she was out of earshot. "She only talks like that because she knows it annoys me," he said petulantly.

"Really," said Second Mate Doumeki.


	3. Vampires

**Vampires**

Doumeki had heard that it wasn't unusual for people to panic a bit after they woke up. It wasn't unusual for them to panic a lot. Even so, this particular newly-reborn boy seemed to be taking things a bit hard.

"I'm a…you're a… I'm a… you made me into a WHAT?!"

"I could always have let you die instead," Doumeki pointed out. He'd thought that would be more of a clincher on the matter.

"This is your idea of rescuing someone?" Watanuki protested. "Instead of being dead I'm _Un_ dead?! That's supposed to be _better?_ "

Doumeki thought this was a slightly unfair assessment. "You still get to move around," A lot, he couldn't help but notice. He wondered if he should mention that even vampires couldn't actually fly, so there really wasn't any point in Watanuki waving his arms around like that. "I could still kill you. If you'd prefer."

The newborn vampire hesitated, then his mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Doumeki took that as a 'no'. Good enough, he hadn't ever expected to get a thankyou out of this.

"It's not all bad," he said, aiming his voice for 'comforting', but unsure how close he was getting.

"I'm going to have to drink blood, aren't I?" said Watanuki, as though he had a checklist he was going through and this was the item at the top.

"Sometimes."

"Blood from _people?_ "

"That's the idea."

His new acquaintance considered this for a minute, and made a face. "Well I'm sorry but I'm really not seeing the upside here yet," he complained.

"We don't age," said Doumeki. "A lot of people would consider that an upside."

Watanuki's eyes widened in horrified realisation. "You mean… you mean I'm going to have to spend – eternity – with _you?!_ " Without even waiting for Doumeki to reply, he let out a wail so loud that people blocks away would probably be wondering who was being murdered.

Doumeki wondered briefly whether he had actually made the wrong decision back there, but found he didn't have it in him to regret this yet – even now.

He'd have to be the first to admit that eternity can send you a little odd. Immortality was all very well in principle, but it did tend to get a bit dull after the first few centuries. You spent so much time waiting for nothing much to happen that when something did catch your attention, you sometimes got a little impulsive. Particularly if the only alternative was to let the most fascinating person you'd met in longer than you could remember die in an alleyway.

Anyway, Watanuki was bound to see things differently after he'd gotten over his initial panic and had some time to adjust. Doumeki could wait – he had all the time in the world.


	4. Piffle World/Land of Personal Assistents I

**Piffle World/Land of Personal Assistents (Scene 1)  
**

Whatever else might be said about him, it had to be said that Watanuki was good at his job. There were a few reasons for this – firstly, he was a perfectionist, prepared to work long, neurotic and sometimes grossly over-caffinated hours to make sure things stayed perfect, secondly because he was fully prepared to yell loudly and at considerable length at anyone who got in the way of the level of perfection he was aiming for – everyone, that was, with the exception of his boss Daidouji Tomoyo, which was a very good thing because it was doubtless one of the crucial factors which had allowed him to keep his job at all. For her own part, Tomoyo (who had attained the label 'eccentric' before she'd attained the age of twenty) had never found herself with the slightest reason to be displeased with his work, though it was a source of some distress to her that her wonderfully efficient personal assistant was going to high-blood pressure himself into an early grave – the only question around the office was how long it would take, and who's job it was going to be to clean up the mess afterwards, since clearly no-one who lived as loudly as Watanuki did could ever die by means as peaceful as simply as keeling over quietly where he stood. And now, after the preliminaries of the dragonfly race had gone so much less than smoothly and the finals looked set to make even the preliminaries feel like just a standard day on the job, Watanuki was looking set to boil over any second.

Her dear assistant was taking on far more work than any one man could be expected to deal with. Clearly, with the finals only a week away and her whole staff running raged trying to track down the saboteurs before it was too late, it was time to bring up the subject of hiring more help again.

Fortunately for all involved, the first fifteen minutes of the interview were all she needed to decide that Doumeki Shizuka was _exactly_ the man she was looking for.

Watanuki did not precisely see things the same way, but Tomoyo was well prepared to talk him into the idea.

"What?!" he said, looking at Doumeki as if he might turn into a frog (or worse, reorganise his paperwork) at any second. "But… but Daidouji-san, you must realise this has got to be the worst possible time we could choose to start bringing on new staff! There's far too much he'd have to be brought up to speed on, and that's even after we get through all the standard orientation period, and…"

"…and that's just why we're so lucky to have found someone as perfectly qualified as Doumeki is." Tomoyo beamed. Watanuki fidgeted. Doumeki looked from one side of the room to the other as though this might be a show worth waking up for.

"But… but you _know_ how much trouble we've always had with hiring additional assistants," Watanuki protested helplessly. "The last four…"

Tomoyo appropriated the most innocent look of concern and disappointment imaginable. "Oh yes, didn't they all leave in under a week citing extreme work related stress as the cause?" In his corner, Doumeki raised an eyebrow.

"Exactly!" said Watanuki quickly.

"Watanuki," said Tomoyo severely, "of course, you know very well how fond of you I am, and how pleased I am you do such a wonderful job, but don't you think it's possible you might have been just a little hard on some of them…?"

The panicked look Watanuki took on was a familiar one. It meant he wanted to get out of this situation by yelling a someone, only there was something about being in Tomoyo's presence that make all his rant circuits short out simultaneously. "No… really, I mean – it's just this job that's the problem! Not that I mind remotely," he said very fast, "I can't even imagine working anywhere else, but when everyone else tries it, the stress just gets to them. It's a very stressful job, you see."

"Is it really?" said Tomoyo.

"Oh, it really is! But never fear – for Daidouji-san's sake and the future of Piffle Princess, the great Watanuki Kimihiro will brave through a mountain of paperwork!"

Tomoyo beamed. "Well then, that settles everything!"

"Of course!" said Watanuki, thinking this meant he'd won. "So clearly…"

" _Clearly_ the fault here is mine," said Tomoyo seriously. "I see now how terribly irresponsible of me it has been to anyone to shoulder so much work alone. But I'm sure Doumeki is exactly the man you need to help you out." Tomoyo clasped her hands together in victory.

Watanuki didn't move a muscle, so it was very impressive just how visually something in his expression slid sideways off his face.


	5. Piffle World II

**Piffle World (scene 2)**

_(sometime in the next day or two)_

The first thing Tomoyo had made clear to Doumeki at the interview was that no matter what might be written down on paper about his employment, his main responsibility was going to be to get Watanuki to go home and get some sleep once in a while. There had even been the implication that if he could get this up to the unprecedented rate of once every night, there could well be some kind of significant financial reward in it for him. It was the sort of information that made a lot of shortcuts he'd take at work over the first couple of weeks almost too easy to justify.

"…no, she's called that off," Doumeki interjected, halfway through Watanuki's spiel of Tomoyo's upcoming engagements.

"What? When?"

"She says she's spending that morning with that Sakura girl from the race. Something involving tea. Possibly cake too. She sent me a note about it this morning."

"She sent you a note?" Watanuki exclaimed, furious with betrayal. "But I'm the one she's supposed to send important messages like that!"

"Not anymore," Doumeki reminded him.

"But…"

"She probably thought you were too busy to deal with it. You were right in the middle of yelling at the race coordinator at the time."

"You could have said something earlier!"

"It hadn't come up yet," said Doumeki dismissively.

"Is there anything else on there I should know about?" said Watanuki tersely, clearly expecting the answer to be 'yes'.

Doumeki handed over the note with a shrug and waited while Watanuki's eyes scanned frantically over it, line by line.

"But… this means we'll have to reschedule practically everything!" he bemoaned.

"Dragonfly race takes priority," agreed Doumeki, with another shrug. "That and tea with Sakura a couple of times a week."

Watanuki was barely listening, pads and calendars and at least one extra keyboard were appearing around him like magic. "Why couldn't she have only let me know sooner? Of course the race takes priority, but we can't just put everything else off indefinitely. I'm gong to have to find space the week after for…"

"Why?" said Doumeki.

"Why what?" Watanuki did not remotely appreciate the intrusion on his thought process.

"Why can't we just cancel everything?"

Watanuki glared at him. "We can't just go around cancelling important meetings! Things have to be booked! Confirmed! There are half a dozen different people I'll need to personally phone to get every one of these cancelled! The very reputation of the Daidouji empire is at stake!"

"So?" said Doumeki. "With the media circus around the dragonfly race, we've got reputation to burn. Cancel any of those meetings now and tell them we can't reschedule until the end of the month, and they'll come charging back at the first chance you give them begging for any time you might available."

The look this earned him was shrewd and surprised, like it had only just occurred to Watanuki that their new personal assistant's personal assistant might actually be in possession of a working brain, and he hadn't quite decided wither this was a good thing yet.

"Plus, this way we can go home early," Doumeki added, which may have been a mistake.

They didn't get out of there early that night. The mere suggestion of leaving early was such utter blasphemy to Watanuki's personal work-based religion that Doumeki lost all the points he'd had towards the recognition of his brain-ownership, and didn't get them back for some time.

It was a fair while before the subject of leaving early came up again.

_(How Doumeki eventually convinces Watanuki to take some time off work to relax, how Watanuki responds to his attempts and whether any of this ever takes place in the office supply closet I leave to the capable imaginations of my readers. )_


	6. Hollywood (Tsubasa)

**Hollywood (or, wherein Syaoran is a professional baseball player, Sakura is a pop idol, Kurogane is her bodyguard, and Fye is a director who's awfully keen on casting some celebrities for his next picture)**

It wouldn't have been strictly untrue to suggest that Sakura (darling pop-singer of Japan and Piffle Princess brand star fashion model, three times Clover Award nominated and forever charmingly baffled by her own success) was every bit as clueless and sweet as her kind of celebrity came, but it wouldn't have been entirely fair either. Because while a lot of her professional reputation may have come from her well known willingness to donate money to assorted causes left and right and throw enormous concerts for charity, it was never a publicity stunt when Sakura was involved. It was never for any other reason than that the mere thought that there were other people out there in the world less privileged than she horrified her to the very core of her being. Not even the most determined tabloid journalists – hungrily watching her every move for the slightest possibility of scandal – could ever produce any evidence otherwise. She had such a reputation for being easily talked into giving up money or time to increasingly ridiculous schemes that it wasn't all that surprising that her security was getting a little over-zealous about policing who got to talk to her these days. It just wasn't making Syaoran's current predicament any easier either.

And if getting Sakura on board for this project was rapidly turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, getting Syaoran on board had been far to easy. It should have taken a lot of negotiation, should have gone through his agent, should have been attached to a lengthy contract listing all the training times and scheduled games that filming absolutely could not be allowed to interfere with. But in reality, the moment Fye has gotten as far as mentioning the hope that they might be getting Sakura involved, no force on earth could have stopped Syaoran from signing every document that was put in front of him. And with his life all signed away, if it then turned out that his help was needed to make sure Sakura signed up too, well, he wouldn't even have known how to refuse.

The saddest part was, even if he _had_ realised that this would involve himself and Fye disguising themselves and sneaking into Sakura's garden in a last-ditch attempt to get far enough past security to suggest the idea to her, he probably still wouldn't have refused. However, there was just one point, right as Fye hoisted him over that last, crucial garden wall that Syaoran wished, just for a moment, that he was a little better at saying no.

Five years of intensive, professional athletic training, and the best he could do on the other side was to land, over-balance and fall flat on his face. The first coherent thought that made it through his brain after it was done going 'ow' at him was a gentle reminder that he'd heard someone say 'eek!' right around the time he was falling, and it couldn't have been him because his voice didn't sound like that.

Syaoran looked up, and found himself looking right up at Sakura, not two metres away from him. Fye might not be getting any points for style over this heist, but he deserved at least one for accuracy. Sakura looked… well, like she'd just seen a stranger come flying over her wall and fall flat on his face, not to put too fine a point on it, but after a second or two more she recovered enough to hurry over and help him back to his feet.

"Oh no! What happened? Are you alright?" she asked all at once, eyes so wide with concern that Syaoran would have fallen over himself to reassure her if only he'd been able to speak without choking just yet.

"No, it's okay, really, I'm fine!" he managed to splutter out, pulled back to his feet to discover he was standing far too close to Sakura for any kind of comfort.

Sakura peered at him curiously, miraculously oblivious to the way Syaoran's heart was about to hammer its way out of his chest. "Do I know you? You look familiar, but… Ah!" she exclaimed, raising a hand to her mouth in surprise. "You're Li Syaoran, aren't you? _The_ Li Syaoran who's always on TV for the baseball?"

Syaoran felt the blush start rising from below his chin and didn't feel it stop. The moment you discover that the most beautiful girl in the universe _knows your name_ is a moment few other experiences will ever compare to.

The moment ended abruptly when Sakura said, "But what are you doing here? And why are you wearing the gardeners' uniform?"

"It's a long story," said Syaoran, getting a hold on himself. "You see, I'm here to talk to you about something really important."

To say that he had Sakura's full attention did not do the situation justice. Syaoran took a deep breath and tried desperately to figure out just exactly what he should say. He just about had it sorted out too, when the imposing bulk of Sakura's chief bodyguard appeared seemingly out of the blue behind her, and – not for the first time that day – every coherent thought Syaoran had been having flew right out of his head.

"You're _not_ a new gardener," said Kurogane.

"K…Kurogane-san?" said Sakura, twisting to look at him, and inexplicably sounding very nearly as guilty as Syaoran felt.

"Well… no… but I'm… I've got to…" Syaoran stammered helplessly, knowing all was lost. He'd been so _close_.

"And you didn't come through the main gates either, or I'd know about it," Kurogane went on, with the gravity of a judge passing out a life sentence. He grabbed Syaoran by the shoulder. "You're coming with me."

"But… but Li-san had something really important to tell me!" Sakura protested.

"Let me guess what," grumbled Kurogane. "If that damned director has anything to do with this…"

"Hah, well, so funny you should mention me…" said Fye, head sticking over the wall. With one big pull of his arms he was over, and climbing the rest of the way down with so much casual ease that it made Syaoran's bruises ache in viscous envy. "And you'd never believe it, but we _did_ just come past reception, but there must have been some sort of horrible mix-up, because they wouldn't let us in. So we had to get a little bit creative." He fished in one of his pockets to produce his sunglasses, and suddenly, despite the fact he was still wearing the same ugly gardeners' uniform as Syaoran, how anyone had failed to recognise him coming in here was impossible to imagine. "You see Kuro-G – you don't mind if I call you Kuro-G, do you? – we're simply far too tight on time to risk any delays on this project now. You know how it is in the movie business, you don't keep to schedule in those all-important early weeks, why, by the time you have everyone signed on and ready to go the studio has completely forgotten they ever gave you the green light. It's just rush-rush-rush every moment of my day."

"Why you…" said Kurogane, glowering.

"Movie business?" said Sakura, which was all the opening Fye needed.

"Not only am _in_ the movie business," said Fye, treating Sakura to his widest smile, "but I'm here today for the express purpose of casting a leading lady in my next film."

Sakura blinked at him for a second before it clicked. "Me?!" she squeaked.

"That's right," beamed Fye. "In fact, Syaoran here has already signed on too, isn't that right?" Words were still escaping Syaoran, but he nodded vigorously.

"I could really be in a movie?" squeaked Sakura. "But I've never acted in anything before! Do you really think I'd be okay?"

"I can't think of anyone I'd rather have!" said Fye happily, twirling his sunglasses. "Why don't I tell you a bit more about the role?"

Kurogane rolled his eyes. He could already tell he'd lost.


	7. Medieval Fantasy I

**  
Medieval Fantasy (scene 1)**

"What part of 'apprentice' do you not understand?" Watanuki complained.

"No fireballs then?"

"Nothing remotely close to fireballs! Do you have any idea what the first two years of apprenticeship to Yuuko is like? I've hardly even _seen_ a spellbook yet!"

"Oh."

"Why don't you do something? Isn't slaying monsters what your lot is all about?"

"I'm an _archer_."

Watanuki looked at him, then looked pointedly at the longsword strapped to his hip.

"Mostly an archer," Doumeki amended.

"Aargh! This is all your fault!"

"Why my fault?"

"If you hadn't practically kidnapped me, I wouldn't be here at all!"

"I wouldn't have had to kidnap you if you'd just come along when I asked," Doumeki reminded him patiently.

"That's exactly what _makes it kidnapping!_ "

Up above, the monster growled at them impatiently.

"Perhaps this is an argument we should leave until later," Doumeki suggested.

"Fine," Watanuki had to concede.

"Any other ideas?"

"….I'm pretty good at running away."

"Sounds like a plan," said Doumeki. "On three?"


	8. Medieval Fantasy II

**Medieval Fantasy (scene 2)**

_(Sometime later that day, once those pesky monster problems have been dealt with)_

One thing Watanuki could do, Doumeki discovered later, was summon forest spirits - though what this might be good for other than a chat, advice or to pass on a message that he'd been kidnapped and was desperately in need of rescuing, Doumeki couldn't think. She was a pretty little thing, with leaves and sunflowers woven into her long, dark hair, but Watanuki's body language suggested what she was saying to him was more frustrating than it was helpful. When she vanished at last with a happy little wave and Watanuki turned back around, he did not look in the least surprised or embarrassed to discover he'd been being watched.

"I told her everything," he declared. "How you kidnapped me in the middle of the night _completely_ against my will and dragged me off into the wilderness."

"And?" said Doumeki.

"And she thought it was cute!" Watanuki wailed.

Doumeki decided he might actually like this forest spirit more than he'd been expecting to.


	9. Pirates III

**Pirates (scene 3)**

It turned out that the second mate's main duties involved scrubbing the deck. Since Doumeki had already discovered by this point that the first mate's main duties were cooking and transporting rum from the hold to the captain's cabin, he didn't see much reason to complain about his lot. Sea-life treated him fine, and the crew certainly never bothered him. It was all pleasantly dull, or would have been if Yuuko and Watanuki hadn't been on board.

There didn't seem to be much actual piracy going on, which was frankly disappointing. The first opportunity they got – a merchant ship which appeared around noon as a sail on the horizon and went on to pass within a few hundred metres of their vessel – went by without either ship so much as acknowledging the other was there. And since a ship like the _Butterfly_ – with a captain with a reputation as wild as Captain Yuuko's – should have been anything but hard to recognise, this surprised Doumeki for several reasons.

"Aren't we supposed to do something?" he asked Watanuki.

"What, like attack them? Just what sort of people do you think we are?" said Watanuki, typically put out by the nerve Doumeki showed by existing all over the place like that.

"Pirates?" Doumeki supplied.

"We aren't that sort of pirates," said Watanuki firmly. "Besides, it's not like they can even see that we're here."

"Of course not," said Doumeki vaguely.

"Are you patronising me?"

"It's hard to tell sometimes," Doumeki muttered.

Watanuki ignored him. "Anyway, we'll have more important things to worry about soon, with the storm coming in," he said briskly.

Doumeki looked up into what seemed to all intents and purposes like a perfectly innocent blue sky. He knew just enough about the sea to have some idea that this didn't necessarily mean anything – storms in these parts could blow in with no warning at all, but in that case… "How can you tell?"

Watanuki started uncomfortably and looked momentarily awkward. "Just because there is, that's all!"

And right up until the gale-force winds started up an hour later, that was all he would say on the matter.


	10. Hired Guns

**Hired Guns**

Watanuki's presence always made everything about the job harder.

"We can't just go around killing people!" he'd complain.

"What do you think they hire us for?" Doumeki would argue. It was an old argument that they never really resolved, because they were both stubborn as hell, utterly convinced of the merits of their own side and completely unwilling to consider that there might be any merit to the other's. At this rate, it could well go on for the rest of their Professional (capitalisation intentional) lives.

But the other problem with Watanuki was that he was so good with a gun he was damn near superhuman – that, or he was an ordinary shot with a gun but had beyond superhuman luck. Doumeki could never entirely make up his mind which it was, but it had to be one or the other. There was no other explanation for how Watanuki ever pulled off half the crazy things he came up with. Doumeki was fairly certain even Watanuki wasn't sure how he did it a lot of the time. So even if Watanuki wasn't quite the sort of partner Doumeki couldn't have worked without, he was sure as hell the sort of partner he couldn't ever afford to risk losing to the competition. Also, between jobs when they actually had the chance, he made a terrific curry, and even without all the rest of it, it would have taken a lot of work for Doumeki to convince himself to give that up.

These were important things to remember on days like this one, when Watanuki had come within inches of falling out of a second storey window, barely saved even by Doumeki's best efforts, and well before they'd ever so much as confirmed the existence of their target. Watanuki's attitude to near-death situations was another annoying feature. Unless he had some reason to declare it was Doumeki's fault, he didn't seem to mind getting seriously injured on the job. He seemed to think it was something like retributive karma for what they did - or worse, that there was a divine tally up there somewhere listing all injuries to be taken in the process of their work, and that by taking on a couple of extras for himself it would mean someone else out there would be spared them. It often seemed to Doumeki like his whole reason for going into a line of work like this was that he believed that if he hadn't done it, someone else would have had to instead, and they wouldn't have done it half as well as Watanuki could.

The first thing Doumeki said after he'd heaved Watanuki back over the railing, heaved him off where he'd landed bodily on Doumeki's person and given him long enough to stop panting and get over all the adrenaline so that he'd be listening when Doumeki started talking to him was, "This is the last Kunogi job we're ever taking."

"What?" said Watanuki, as if nothing more mortifying had happened to him that day. "Himawari is the best client we've got! Not to mention the only one who ever hires us o do anything that doesn't involve killing anyone. And she's a very nice girl."

A very nice girl who hires professional gunmen on a regular basis, thought Doumeki. What he said was, "She's bad luck."

"What?" said Watanuki again. He did this a lot, it tended to mean not that he'd missed Doumeki's point, but that he was devoting every fibre of his concentration to avoiding it. "You're being ridiculous. You're letting superstition get the better of you again."

"Then you explain to me why you've nearly gotten killed at least twice on each of the last five jobs she's sent us on," said Doumeki. Even he didn't know how much of this he believed anymore – except for the bit about avoiding Kunogi. His gut had been telling him that since before they took the first job from her. Having his gut proven so thoroughly right since had not been vindicating in any sort of satisfying way.

"That was all just bad luck," Watanuki snapped back, unloading, checking and reloading his gun in the deliberate way that meant he was avoiding eye contact. "The ordinary kind that has nothing to do with Himawari at all. Besides, I'm not dead yet, am I?"

Yet, Doumeki thought, not remotely comforted by it. Whether he might have liked Watanuki or not, he was very sure he didn't want him to die – for all sorts of inconvenient reasons. But mostly because, when you lose a partner like Watanuki, you don't ever find another one like him again.


	11. Superheroes I

**Superheroes (Scene 1)  
**

Saving the life of Doumeki Shizuka was rapidly turning into the biggest mistake Watanuki had ever made.

"No I'm not. Don't be ridiculous," he protested helplessly. "I don't look anything _like_ him!"

"Yes you do," said Doumeki. "The only difference is that you're wearing glasses. And no spandex. No cape either. I liked the cape," he added.

This was completely unfair. No-one _ever_ recognised him out of costume! And maybe that was just because it wouldn't occur to them that quiet, mild-mannered Watanuki could ever be a superhero, or maybe it was just because when you were a sidekick to Yuuko no-one much noticed you at all, but it had always worked perfectly well before. The nerve of his guy – recognising him in public, of all things – it was beyond all reasonable belief.

"It wasn't my cape!" Watanuki wailed.

"The spandex didn't really suit you though," said Doumeki thoughtfully.

"It wasn't my idea!"

Doumeki raised an eyebrow.

"And it wasn't my spandex!" Watanuki amended quickly. "On account of how whoever you saw _wasn't me!_ "

Doumeki's other eyebrow joined the first one. Watanuki swallowed nervously. Damn Yuuko and her damn spandex. He'd never liked wearing it anyway. "I don't know what's going through that crazy head of yours, but…"

Doumeki reached out suddenly and had pulled Watanuki's glasses away from his face before their owner had any time to realise what he was doing. He peered speculatively into Watanuki's face with such an intense expression that eventually Watanuki gave in just to make him stop doing it. A horrible possibility struck him. "Oh my god!" he shrieked, "You're a supervillain, aren't you? That's the only possible way you could have been able to see through my disguise!"

"Am not," said Doumeki.

"You must be!" Watanuki wailed. "It explains everything!"

"Like why you had to save my life yesterday?" said Doumeki.

"Obviously that was all part of your evil play to get close enough that you could find out my secret identity!"

"So I could confront you about it at school today?"

" _Yes!_ That's exactly the sort of thing a supervillain would do!"

"Why?" said Doumeki.

"So you could scare me by making me think my whole secret was in danger! It all makes sense now! Wait, where are you going?"

"Anywhere there's no-one accusing me of supervillainry would do," said Doumeki, without turning around.

Watanuki watched him go, unsure precisely how this behaviour fit into his supervillain theory but certain he'd figure it out. It wasn't until Doumeki had made it around the next corner that his internal reality-check kicked in long enough to make him yell, 'Wait!' and run after.

Doumeki did wait, which was more than Watanuki would have given him credit for. "Still not a supervillain," he said, once his pursuer had caught up. Watanuki ignored him.

"You can't tell anyone else about me," he hissed desperately. "It's really important."

"Can't I?" said Doumeki. He was obviously going to make this difficult.

"Please!" said Watanuki helplessly. "I'm begging you not to." Doumeki looked amused by this, which had to be a bad sign. "Oh god," Watanuki muttered in shock. "You're going to blackmail me, aren't you?"

"Why not?" said Doumeki thoughtfully. "What are you offering?"

Watanuki wracked his brains for any clue as to what a villain like Doumeki might expect from him, but he didn't have the faintest idea. "What do you _want_ me to offer?"

"I don't know," said Doumeki thoughtfully. "You could buy me lunch."

Watanuki deflated slightly. He was painfully aware Doumeki was mocking him, but equally aware he was getting off lightly and shouldn't complain. "Oh, fine," he grumbled. "But – I honestly don't have any money on me today."

"You could give me your lunch," suggested Doumeki.

Sacrifices, Watanuki thought to himself, as he fished out his lunchbox. Being a superhero was all about making sacrifices. No wonder he hated it so much. You'd think protecting the city from alien invaders was enough, but no, he had to deal with Doumeki as well.

"Here!" he snapped, thrusting the lunchbox at his new, least-favourite supervillain. "But that's the end of it, understand? And don't go thinking I'm _ever_ saving your life again!"


	12. Piffle World III

**Piffle World (scene 3)**

_(Some weeks later)_

To Watanuki's unmitigated horror, not only did Tomoyo not fire Doumeki on the spot, she didn't even seem to believe anything untoward had taken place.

"Harassment? Why, I haven't noticed anything of the sort at all," Tomoyo said, deftly hitting the off button on her video camera. "You _must_ know our company policy states that you need to be able to back up claims like this with the testimony of a third party."

"But he only does it when he knows no-one else is watching!" Watanuki argued helplessly, feeling revenge slipping through his fingers. "He does it most when there's no-one else here at all!"

"When there's no-one else here at all?" said Tomoyo, sounding puzzled. "Oh my, you aren't working here after hours again, are you Watanuki? You know what trouble we'll be in with the occupational health and safety people – they fret so terribly over these things! And I've _just_ been slipped word they may be planning a surprise inspection any day."

When Watanuki got back later, the first thing he said was, "I'm working from home tonight." He began clearing off his desk in a businesslike manner.

After a few moments of silence, Doumeki began doing likewise. A minute or two later, Watanuki looked up and glared at him accusingly.

"You are _not_ coming with me! It's _my_ house!"

"I'm not working here if you're not," said Doumeki, shoving files into folders in his usual haphazard manner.

"Then go home! _Your_ home, the one you're always complaining you don't see enough anymore!"

Doumeki looked at him sceptically. "Are you sure you trust me to get this stuff done without supervision?" he asked, shoving the last few files into other files without looking at them. Watanuki's eyebrow twitched – impulses to keep an eye on Doumeki and conflicting desires not see him at all were visibly waring in his head.

"You," he hissed, "have ulterior motives, and don't think I don't know it!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Doumeki evenly.

Watanuki threw his arms in the air, but he didn't stop Doumeki following him home that evening.

* * *

_(And since I've gotten this far, but I probably won't be finishing the scene it starts, have one extra little line from further on in the chronology – probably not set the next morning, but probably not all that far in the future either )_

When Watanuki woke up the following morning, he was not half so horrified by the discovery that he'd slept with Doumeki as he was to learn that he was going to be late for work.


	13. Piffle World IV

**Piffle World (scene 4)**

_(some months later still)  
_

"We could be having sex right now," Doumeki pointed out. It was eight o'clock on a Friday evening, and they had both been at work since eight AM. He was pretty sure this was exactly the sort of situation he'd been hired to prevent in the first place, though he couldn't convince even himself that the suggestion he'd just made had anything to do with keeping his job.

"Just imagine," said Watanuki, without looking up.

Doumeki tried out a different tack. "What if I said that if we don't make it home within an hour today, there won't be any sex this weekend?"

"You'd be lying, and we'd both know it," said Watanuki. Doumeki had to admit he was right. Time for the emergency backup plan. Doumeki got to his feet.

"And where do you think you're going?" said Watanuki, looking up at last.

"Home," said Doumeki. "To bed."

"Fine," said Watanuki. "Go ahead. But I'm not coming with you and you can't make me."

"To bed," Doumeki repeated, "where you will be entirely welcome to join me at an time, where in fact you will be entirely able to join me within fifteen minutes of leaving this office at any time tonight."

Watanuki glared at him. "Don't you even think about trying the _look_ again. _What_ was the rule we made about that look?"

"Something about the Geneva convention?" Doumeki suggested vaguely.

"The rule was: you do not ever get to give me that look again!" Watanuki hissed. "Fine! Go home for all I care. I'm sure I can finish _all_ this work _all_ by myself sometime before midnight, but don't you think for a moment I plan to set a foot outside this office before then."

Doumeki shrugged and walked out. He'd gotten just as far as the car park when his cell phone rang.

"We're going to my place, not yours," said Watanuki as soon as Doumeki answered it. "It's closer, and there's real food there."

"Gotcha," said Doumeki, and hung up.


	14. Superheroes II

**Superheroes (Scene 2)  
**

Watanuki actually had three different superpowers. The first was the ghost vision that allowed him to see the giant spirit-monsters that would periodically appear and go rampaging through the city.

"Invisible monsters?" said Doumeki. "Didn't notice any."

"Of _course_ you didn't!" Watanuki spluttered. "On account of that bit where they are invisible!"

"Huh," said Doumeki, and continued eating Watanuki's lunch.

"What did you _think_ happened to that building you were in?"

"Freak structural failure?" suggested Doumeki.

"Then what do you think _I_ was doing out there the whole time?"

"Sort of flailing around. Looked like you were having fun."

"You are the only person on the planet who would think that saving idiots from giant, invisible monsters that they did not even know were there was fun!"

Doumeki shrugged and swallowed his sushi.

* * *

Watanuki's second superpower - the only one that was directly useful when it game to the fighting part of his job, and yet still the one he most dreaded anyone ever finding out about - was the ability to extend his arms and legs as though his entire body resembled nothing so much as a giant elastic band.

"So," said Doumeki speculatively, "what other parts of your body can you extend?"

"Oh, thank you," said Watanuki curtly, "you would really not believe how old that gag does not get when it gets made by every person who ever learns I can do that."

"You're welcome," said Doumeki. Watanuki nearly hit his head on his desk.

"What about your nose?" asked Doumeki.

"Yes, fine, my nose extends. That very useful when I need to smell monsters coming around corners. Except where it's totally not. Happy?"

Doumeki gave him a curious look.

"I'm not going to demonstrate!" Watanuki flailed. "We're at school! Anyone could see!"

"Or hear," said Doumeki quietly to himself.

* * *

Watanuki's third superpower was the one he was most unequivocally grateful for. It allowed him to regenerate from any injury within a couple of minutes at most - and it got used a lot. Embarrassingly often, in fact - to the point that Watanuki sometimes felt that whoever it was up there who _should_ have been looking out for him had instead decided that giving him that power made it all okay to then give the rest of the universe explicit permission to use him as its personal punching bag. Not that Watanuki was complaining about being able to regenerate though - not in the least.

"Doesn't it still hurt?" asked Doumeki. Something in his expression that Watatanuki couldn't quite read made him want to apologise for something he knew he hadn't done and explain quickly before there were any further misunderstandings, which was really very annoying.

"Hardly, there's just a bit of a sting then it all heals up, and I'm fine and can go back to fighting."

"...until the monster stabs you in the same place all over again."

"Very sorry if my weak spots start getting a bit obvious for them! It isn't like I mean for them to do that!"

"It can't be much fun though."

"No, really, " said Watanuki, in his ongoing quest to make Doumeki understand sarcasm by shear repetitive effort, "getting treated like a shish-kebab by alien ghost monsters is the best part of my job."

"It isn't much fun to watch either."

"You wouldn't _have_ to watch if you hadn't picked up this insane habit of wandering into mortal danger just to make me rescue you again three times a week!"

Doumeki shrugged. "I don't mean for that to happen either."

There was a tense silence where both stared at the other. Watanuki gave in first.

"Fine! Just to save your poor sensibilities, in future I will try very hard not to let myself take minor, non-fatal injuries while trying to save the city from invisible invaders that no-one realises are there!"

The tense silence was replaced by one of those awkward pauses where Watanuki wondered whether either of them had any idea what they were talking about or what was going on here.

"Thank you," said Doumeki evenly.

"Don't mention it," muttered Watanuki, wondering just what he'd agreed to.

"So what's for lunch today?"

"You've already eaten it!"

"Oh," said Doumeki, sounding disappointed.


	15. Post-Apocalyptic I

**Post-Apocalyptic (Scene 1)  
**

"Well what _were_ you expecting?" said the boy.

"Dunno," said Doumeki, slinging his gun over his shoulder. "Just…" Not you. He would have been an odd enough sight even without his surroundings and the poor lighting to go with them. Glasses in any sort of intact state were rare enough – worth a fortune to the right people. He was scrawny too – but so was everyone these days. "But it is you, right? You're the one they call the April Fool?"

The boy made a choking noise. "It's not any of _them_ , if that's what you mean," he said, indicating the rest of the room with a shuddering movement of his shoulders. "That's what you're doing here, isn't it?"

"Followed the gunfire," said Doumeki. That and the screaming. Mostly the screaming, really.

"You'll be the first one in two years who hasn't had to steal me from another gang then," said the boy, though Doumeki couldn't tell quite how he felt about this. Behind the lenses, his eyes were strange and unfocused. Look into his eyes long enough and you could almost believe he really could see things no-one else could. He didn't look like he'd been crying, though he did give the impression it might have been a relief to him if he could have been.

Doumeki could only make out a little of what was left in the shadows around the rest of the room, and while not generally squeamish he was glad for it. Even in the poor light the smell was starting to get to him. "Let's go outside."

The boy nodded without really looking at him. He was well enough to stand, though he was shaking badly – but when Doumeki stepped forward to offer his support the boy only glared at him until he stepped back again.

Outside, the air was fresher, early morning light not yet bright enough for the true desolation of the landscape to be evident, but if anything the boy only seemed to hunch further in on himself. "Well?" he said after a bit, probably more because he was sick of being stared at than because he really wanted to talk. "What do you want to know?"

"The stories," said Doumeki, "are they true?"

"Which ones?" said the boy irritably. "The ones where I'm a human food finding radar? The ones where I can lead people to supply caches only dead men should know about?" He made the choking sound again, closer to a laugh this time. "Most of them." His eyes flickered Doumeki's way suspiciously. "Aren't you going to ask me how I do it?"

"How do you do it?" said Doumeki obediently.

"The ghosts tell me where they are," said the boy, voice taking on a shrill quality. "They're everywhere! Thick as flies in some places. Sometimes I can't even hear anything else for them all talking at once." He stopped and gave Doumeki another look – trying to gauge whether it had been decided he was crazy yet. Doumeki kept his expression carefully neutral.

"Sometimes they want to help. That's when they lead me places. Tell me where stuff is," the boy went on, his voice getting faster the longer he spoke. "But not always. And I know this part isn't in any of the stories you've heard, but it really matters that you understand it, because that last lot never did – and look where they wound up! – _sometimes_ the ghosts don't help. Even dead people make mistakes. They remember wrong, or they lead me somewhere where there used to be food but it's all gone rotten or been taken already. And sometimes – sometimes they even do it on purpose." On the last word his voice dropped to a hiss. "Some of them think it's _funny_. They lead me for days on end through the worst country to get to places where they know there's nothing to find at all! That's how it is, and I swear to any god anyone still believes in I can't ever tell which one it's going to be."

"People get angry at you for that," Doumeki guessed. The boy let out a weak laugh.

"If I'm lucky they only get angry at me. But the ghosts… the strongest ones – sometimes they can even move things. You understand what I'm saying, right? Enough to _attack_ someone! And sometimes, they get really, really protective of me.

"I don't mind being hit," said the April Fool, the hysterical note in his voice getting much stronger. "I mean, I don't _like_ it, I'm not that crazy yet, but I can deal with it. It's hardly any worse than what everyone else goes through around here. _But_ , so help me," he pointed an arm back into the building without looking around, "I _do not want_ to have to see anything like _that ever again!_."

Doumeki hadn't believed for a moment when he'd arrived on the scene of all the screaming and gunfire that this boy could have been the one who killed everyone else in that room. The fact that disbelief showed so clearly on his face may have been a big part of the reason the boy was no more panicky than he was. But any reasonable person could have told you he sounded crazy – maybe crazy enough to have turned a few lucky finds of badly-needed supplies into a miracle in the eyes of his handlers – and Doumeki knew far too well that crazy people could pull off crazy and terrible things when pushed. Even slightly-built boys like this one.

But then… in a world populated by a few surviving gangs of angry, desperate humans, and six billion angry, desperate ghosts, who was he to say what was crazy, what was a hope they couldn't afford to waste?

"Come on," he told the boy. "If we get going now, we can make it back to the camp before it gets very light."

The boy followed him without complaint.


	16. Post-Apocalyptic II

**Post-apocalyptic (scene 2)**

_(Several months later)_

When Doumeki got back an aura of gloom had descended over the camp. Syaoran was the one who pulled him aside to explain why. Watanuki had lead them on two supply missions while Doumeki had been away – both of them busts. In the months since Watanuki had first joined their camp he'd lead them on eleven missions for which Doumeki had been present, and only one had ever failed to reward them with something they could use. This new trend had everyone uncomfortable. It could have been no more than co-incidence, but talents like Watanuki's made everyone that little bit superstitious. Whether this meant Watanuki's lucky streak was over, or whether this was all just some immature form of protest over Doumeki's extended absence, or whatever other reason, it wasn't looking good.

At least no-one here would ever have hit him for it, which was more relieving to both him and Watanuki than even the room full of bodies where the boy had been found could entirely explain.

Watanuki looked relieved to see him back, but only for a moment.

"It's _easier_ when you're around," he said angrily. Angry at having to justify himself all the time, angry at having to explain all this to someone he knew only halfway believed him, probably angrier still at having to give Doumeki credit for something he was blatantly unaware he was doing at all. "All the angriest ghosts – the big ugly ones and the ones that only want to make trouble – they won't go near you. Don't ask me why, I've never seen that happen around anyone before," he added, with a certain amount of grudging awe. "And as soon as you left they came back again."

Doumeki didn't know what to begin to make of this and didn't try. "The others think you were sulking about me being away." Well, Kurogane and Syoaran did, or suspected it at least. Sakura didn't think things like that about anyone, and he never knew what Fye was thinking about anything.

"You still don't believe me, do you?" said Watanuki, hotly.

"I don't know what to believe," said Doumeki. All he knew for sure was that Watanuki was far too good at finding them what they needed for it to matter how he did it.

Watanuki glared at him, then gave up. "I had a dream while you were away," he said, looking back towards the camp. "About this guy who looked just like you."

"I'm not dead," said Doumeki firmly.

"Of course not," Watanuki snorted, "He couldn't have been _you_. He smiled far too much. All the time." Behind him, Doumeki went very still. Watanuki went on oblivious. "He said his name was Haruka."

"Stop there," said Doumeki.

Watanuki gave him one of his flickering glances. "He was your grandfather, wasn't he?"

Doumeki had Watanuki by the collar of his shirt before he knew what he was doing. "I told you to shut. Up," he said, voice low and dangerous.

Watanuki's eyes widened with shock, then settled quickly back into their usual angry defiance. It didn't matter now what Doumeki might or might not admit, Watanuki knew he'd scored a point. Fortunately, he was still wise enough to stay silent on the subject after that.

Doumeki spent the rest of the day trying to remember whether he'd ever mentioned Doumeki Haruka to anyone in the camp – anyone Watanuki might have spoken to. It wouldn't be like him to have said anything, would have been even less like him to forget it if he had, but it wasn't impossible and it was still easier to believe than the alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though it has taken me ridiculously long to get cleaned up an finished, this last AU went and spawned a novel-length continuation. As of the time of writing this the first chapter's off to the beta reader and, with any luck, should be up soon.


	17. Superheroes III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last part to the Superhero AU, written on a whim some time after the rest of the ficlets.

**Superheroes (Scene 3)**

Watanuki was so used to living under the general understanding that the whole world was out to get him that it wasn't until he'd had to rescue Doumeki for the fourth time running that it dawned on him that it wasn't just coincidence or just his own paranoia – the universe (or Doumeki, or both, which he privately felt more likely) really _was_ out to get him this time. No-one had luck that bad.

His luck was only going to get worse though, because the one person he knew who had any hope of shedding any light on the mystery was Yuuko, who could be counted on to confuse issues as simple as making breakfast in the morning if she was allowed to talk about them long enough. Even after months of professional superheroing, Watanuki still wasn't even clear on exactly what he was fighting thanks to his employer's habit of changing her mind about whether they were aliens, angry ghosts, mutants, secret government experiments, extra-dimensional invaders or he didn't know what else, based (as far as he could tell) purely on what game or manga series she was in the middle of at the time. The horrifying part was where her advice still turned out to be the crucial key to destroying them more often than not, regardless of what random source she'd attributed to the Monster of the Day, and it was all at the point where Watanuki would long ago have succumbed to his own elaborate conspiracy theories which cast Yuuko as the ringleader behind everything that had ever been wrong with his life if that wasn't all far too blatantly obvious to actually be true. Any sane person in his position would surely have walked away from this job on their first day and left the whole deal to whichever supernatural branch of the government there must logically exist to take care of this sort of thing. Curse the overdeveloped sense of personal responsibility he'd been born with.

And just when he'd been starting to get into the groove of things, along came Doumeki, the least grateful rescue-ee the world had ever known.

"He keeps making me rescue him!" he complained to Yuuko.

"This would be that supervillain of yours again?" said Yuuko, holding her pipe out thoughtfully.

Yuuko had been informed about Doumeki back after the first rescue when Watanuki had burst into her shop wailing, "It's over! My secret identity is lost! Aaaaahh!" and other complaints of that nature in between periods of complete incoherency.

"Oh dear, already?" Yuuko had replied. "Been getting careless with your powers in public, have you? I'm sure I did warn you where that could lead."

"It wasn't my fault!" Watanuki protested. "It's all because of _him!_ "

" _Him_ , hm?" Yuuko had been obviously far more fascinated than concerned by any of his troubles. "And who might that be? A rival superhero? A secret government agent?"

"This guy from school! I save his life and this is how he thanks me?"

"Mm?" said Yuuko, "And exactly how did he thank you?"

"By recognising me at school! Right out of the blue! I mean, he just looked at me and _knew!_ "

"One glance was enough, you say?"

"What's the point of even having a secret identity if people are going to do things like that?"

"Ah," said Yuuko knowingly, drawing herself to her full height to better make her dramatic declaration. "Eyes that see the truth! A focus that effortlessly pierces even your disguise! Surely the sign of a destined connection between you."

"I knew it!" Watanuki shrieked. "He really is a supervillain! That's why he blackmailed me for my lunch!"

"Your lunch?" echoed Yuuko. "Oh, a certain sign of supervillainry, that one."

Yuuko's verbal arsenal didn't often include sarcasm, so maybe Watanuki had some remote excuse if that remark had flown right over his head at the time. At any rate, he was too relieved now – some weeks after the original fact – that she'd been paying enough attention to _remember_ the nefarious schoolboy he'd been dealing with that any other details about her reaction paled into irrelevance.

"Part of his evil plans, perhaps?" Yuuko suggested, meaning the rescuing incidents.

This made Watanuki pause. The supervillain theory of Doumeki's behaviour was one he was reluctant to give up, even though he had to admit that the only evil thing he'd seen Doumeki do so far was irritate him – in a variety of creative ways, sure, but nothing that had interfered with any of his heroing, and surely any effective supervillain would need to be more subtle than that. "I don't know, what kind of evil plans involve getting attacked by a monster?"

"Oh, the most _devious_ kind!" Yuuko assured him. "Though also the kind that were never _plans_ to begin with. These attacks, where did they happen?"

"There was the one on that big building near the station, the one on that other big building in the city, the one that nearly reached the school and the other one out near the river," Watanuki recited. "And he acts like he doesn't even believe there was anything there to attack him most of the time! Says he was just passing by and then _I_ showed up and that was the first he knew, like it was all my fault and I was following _him!_ "

"Perhaps he has been following you," Yuuko smiled. "Do you think you have an admirer?"

The mere thought made Watanuki gag. "But he was always there first!"

"Then," said Yuuko, riding a train of thought she knew was going to take her somewhere interesting, "could it be that your Doumeki is attracting those monsters himself?"

Watanuki had gotten as far as shrieking, "He really _is_ a supervillain! How dare he make me rescue him whenever it goes wrong!" when Yuuko cut him off again.

"Oh, I don't mean he's attracting them deliberately. It would take an impossibly devious mind to devise a plan to hide his guilt by putting himself in danger with his own actions – you wouldn't attribute that much genius to him, surely?"

Watanuki wasn't entirely sure what Yuuko was getting at, but that would mean complimenting Doumeki's intelligence, and he'd happily drop even accusations of villainy first. "Absolutely not."

"Then the only remaining possibility is that he there is something about him beyond even his own control that attracts the monsters, hm?"

To his surprise, Watanuki realised that had been exactly the conclusion he'd been unable to put his finger on all day. "But…what? There's never been anyone who's done that before."

"I wonder," Yuuko mused. "I think it's about time you brought this Doumeki to see me, don't you?"

Something about the thought of introducing Yuuko and Doumeki made Watanuki's blood run cold, but it was probably just paranoia. At least this would make them each other's problems for a change.

* * *

Doumeki treated the news that Watanuki's boss wanted to meet him with the same disinterest he treated just about everything that wasn't likely to end with him getting to eat another of Watanuki's lunches. After greeting them at the door with her usual enthusiasm (which would have constituted borderline sexual harassment if attempted by anyone with less style) she took Doumeki into the lounge and shooed Watanuki off to make some tea. This meant Watanuki was going to hear very little of what they might wind up talking about, and that worried him. He was sure a lot of the answer was going to be 'you'.

Getting the kettle to boil seemed to take twice as long as it usually did that day. When he finally made it back in there, tray in hand, Yuuko turned from her guest to beam at him in the most discouraging of all possible ways. "Our mystery is solved, Watanuki! Your Doumeki is indeed the sad victim of a most unusual condition."

"Meaning what?" asked Watanuki, wondering helplessly if he was ever going to make her stop with that 'your Doumeki' thing.

"Meaning it truly is his nature to attract those very monsters that it is your own destiny to defeat!" Yuuko declared, leaping to her feet for emphasis and forcing Watanuki to stumble a nervous pace backwards. "Henceforth, I do predict that any that should set foot in our fair city shall surely be driven to target him alone."

"But… but… but why did they never go after him before?" Watanuki protested. "I never had to save him once until a month ago." Doumeki himself looked neither victimised nor particularly saddened by her proclamation, which Watanuki could only take as a sign of extreme mental retardation.

"And why should it have happened before?" Yuuko boomed. "Were you aware of the great powers you possessed before my advice on that fateful day awakened them within you?"

"But this is even worse!" Watanuki protested. "Can't we make him _stop_ attracting them?"

"Can we make him _stop?_ " Yuuko cried, ratcheting the dramatics up yet another notch (and had Watanuki seen a lightning and thunder crackling behind her he wouldn't have been the least surprised). "Can you stop the wind from blowing or the sun from shining? Can you meet a long lost childhood friend when the sakura petals are falling in the spring and not fall deeply in love? Can you reject a destiny handed to you by the heavens themselves?"

Watanuki was sure the answer to at least one of those had to be 'yes' if there was any mercy in the world, but it would be hopeless to press the point.

"From this day, the very nature of your mission has changed!" Yuuko went on, her enthusiasm only rising with each new declaration. "Though your enemies may appear at any time, now you shall always know what it is they seek! To protect Doumeki is to protect the entire city!"

"What!?" said Watnauki, who had a feeling he knew where this was going but was determined to go on denying it as long as humanly possible.

"Watanuki!" Yuuko snapped at him, pointing a accusing finger mere inches away from his nose. "Have you not always complained that the enemy might appear any time, anywhere without your knowledge? Well, no longer! Now all you need do is to accompany Doumeki at all possible times, and surely the monsters will come to you!"

"WHAT!?" Watanuki shrieked. "Him!? But.. but he's…!"

"He is to be in the gravest of danger on every occasion the invaders arrive," Yuuko boomed. "Surely you would not abandon your sacred duty to protect the entire city for some _personal_ disagreement?"

Oh, that just wasn't playing fair. "No, but…" his gaze fell on Doumeki himself, who had been watching the proceedings with mild interest. "And what about you? Don't you have anything to say about this?"

Doumeki shrugged. "Not particularly," he said, and sipped his tea, immediately reminding Watanuki that there was still more wrong with this scenario than he'd even begun to cover.

"But how can I protect him? He doesn't even realise when he's in danger! He thinks the monsters don't exist and everything else is my fault!"

"Oh?" said Yuuko.

"Can't you at least explain it all to him so that he understands?" Watanuki pleaded.

Yuuko looked back at Doumeki, who still looked more like someone watching a movie than a boy who'd just heard his life was on the line and his would-be protector didn't want to have to see his face.

"Perhaps there's _something_ I could do in that line," she suggested, and Watanuki, who had run out of the imagination to think how this could possibly get worse, made the mistake of believing her.

* * *

If Yuuko herself wasn't bad enough, Watanuki really should have taken the giant stack of comic books Doumeki was going through at lunch the following day as a warning. That and how much more interested the look Doumeki gave him when he sat down was than it ever had been before, but deliberately avoiding eye contact with someone often means you miss these things.

Doumeki reached for a recently discarded issue on the pile and flicked to a particular page. The cover (which Watanuki would later decide he ought to have paid more attention to) showed a muscle-bound superhero in a passionate, mid-air kiss with a beautiful woman. The muscles were in no way fair, he felt. Spandex looked good on people with muscles. On Watanuki, spandex just made people want to give him a sandwich.

"Ever done anything like this?" Doumeki asked, handing the issue over to Watanuki. The selected page showed Mr Muscle going flying out of a – something – which had just exploded, barely in the nick of time.

"No," said Watanuki firmly. "And the longer I can go without doing anything like that, the happier I'll be."

"Oh," said Doumeki, sounding vaguely disappointed.

"It's not my fault if the monsters don't blow things up! They just rampage around." Watanuki felt inexplicably like he had something to prove.

Doumeki had already grabbed another of his comics, this time one with a man speaking into a watch on his wrist with flashing lights on it. "Own any of these?"

"Of course not, I don't do gadgets, do I?" Watanuki protested, then in the interests of honesty, had to add, "and Yuuko's never given me one." He wasn't ever admitting to the incident with the earmuffs if it killed him not to. "What are you _doing_ with all those things anyway? You were never into comic books before this."

"Your boss gave them to me. She seemed to think you wanted me to read them."

Watanuki's rapidly developing plans to murder Yuuko and bury her in a shallow grave were rudely interrupted when Doumeki shoved yet another issue under his nose. "What about this?"

"I don't even have that superpower!"

"This?"

"I don't fight mad scientists with superweapons either! Just monsters!"

"Why not?"

"The monsters keep me very busy, okay?"

"How about this?"

"How could that even _happen?_ People around here can't even see what I'm fighting, why would they bother cheering me on?"

"Hm." Something in Doumeki's expression suggested that it was a poor sort of superhero who couldn't even get a bit of enthusiasm going from a crowd of onlookers. He reached for his pile of comics yet again.

For the first time ever, Watanuki found himself genuinely wishing something would attack the city right then, just to get himself out of the situation.

* * *

Something did attack the city later that afternoon, but by then lunchbreak was long over, and Watanuki's helpless cries of "Couldn't you have shown up _earlier?_ " at the thing were rudely ignored.

* * *

Even if he didn't live up to the standards of the comic book superheros, Doumeki had to admit Watanuki was relatively decent at what he did. It was a shame fulfilling his destined duties (or however Yuuko had put it) put him in such a bad mood. You'd think that dispatching a monster and pulling off a successful rescue would have given him some sort of sense of achievement, but instead, it just made him angry again.

"Can't you try _not_ attracting them?"

"How?" Doumeki frowned downwards and adjusted his grip on his rescuer a bit in a way that made Watanuki yelp at him in protest. What with his rubber-man invulnerability, Watanuki might not be bothered much by how high up they were where they'd landed, but Doumeki didn't really want to have to be rescued from falling again today if he could help it.

"I don't know, just turn it off! Hide in a box somewhere! Anything!"

"Have you tried not being a superhero?"

"Of course I've tried! The monsters kept coming anyway!"

"Funny that."

"There must be _something_ you can do! Have you even…"

Doumeki would later claim he'd kissed Watanuki at that point just to shut him up, though even he probably never believed a word of it.

* * *

It wasn't unusual for Watanuki to come storming in to see Yuuko in utter fury, but this was pretty extreme even by usual standards. "You… you… THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!" he shrieked, pointing an arm at Yuuko, presumably to make sure she didn't make the mistake of thinking the complaint was directed at one of the invisible other people who weren't in the room.

"Hm?" said Yuuko.

" _You_ gave him all those comic books! You gave him all those stupid ideas about heroing! Now he thinks that just because I've rescued him once or twice he's supposed to fall in love with me! Why!?"

"Oh really," Yuuko sounded fascinated. "Life or death battles, adrenalin-fuelled rescues just in the nick of time. Powers shared that entwine your destinies by the will of the fates themselves! Why, the budding of romance must be inevitable!"

"Does the part where I can't stand the sight of him count for _anything!?_ He doesn't even appreciate being rescued! He doesn't even get scared!"

Yuuko nodded knowingly. "It can be very difficult for men to find a way to express their gratitude. How good that he's found…"

"He's _not_ grateful! He's not in love with me either! It's just a stupid idea he got from his stupid, stupid comics! Comics you gave to him!"

"Do you want me to have another word with him?" Yuuko offered, eyes sparkling with evil glee.

Watanuki opened his mouth and then shut it again. "No," he declared firmly. "I am going to deal with this – _myself_ – and don't you dare do anything to make it worse!"

He tried very hard to slam the door on the way out, but the damn thing caught on the carpet and had to be disentangled before it would close at all, which completely ruined the effect.

* * *

Watanuki gave Doumeki a deliberately wide berth when he sat down for lunch the next day, not so much because he really expected Doumeki to try anything here in public, but it didn't hurt to be certain, or to avoid sending any further messages that might get lost in translation. Doumeki watched him with the expression of someone vaguely expecting a show and wondering when it might begin. His stack of superhero comics was back – if anything, Watanuki thought it might have been larger than last time he'd seen it.

"You," he declared, "have got to get rid of those things before they do any more damage."

"I was rather enjoying them," said Doumeki.

"But they're giving you completely the wrong idea!" Watanuki protested. "Can't you get this through your skull? Those are _comics!_ Stories! What I do is real life! _Real_ superheroing isn't anything like what those tell you it is!"

Doumeki continued to stare at him blandly for a few seconds, then reached for his comic stack and fished out one of the more solid and serious looking issues. Wordlessly, he flicked through to a page and handed it over to Watanuki.

On it, one of those muscly superheros was having what looked like a Serious Argument with his girlfriend. _Don't you understand?_ he was saying. _This job isn't about heroics or glory or whatever you see on TV! The bad guys don't just roll over and let me beat them. Real people can die if I make any mistake! They hate me for being a mutant freak as much as they…_

"I think he said it better than you did," said Doumeki, interrupting before Watanuki got any further. "They make out at the end of the scene," he added helpfully.

Watanuki slammed the comic shut and practically threw it back at him. "That is completely not the point!" he shrieked. "The point is that me rescuing you now and then _does not mean we are going to date!_ Why on earth do you keep trying to cast yourself as the girlfriend, anyway? _You're not even female!_ "

Doumeki shrugged. "They're only comics. They don't have to be exactly like real life."

Watanuki had never wanted to throttle anyone so much in is entire life. He wanted to scream at Doumeki and never have to see his face again, but he was already doing the former and finding it supremely unsatisfying, and the latter would seriously damage his professional credibility.

"They aren't like real life at all!" he insisted, despite his rapidly depleting case for the matter, and cast around desperately for the example he needed to prove himself right. "Like… in real life, _you're_ what's attracting the monsters to the city! For all we know, it's been you all along!"

"That's possible," Doumeki allowed.

"So then…" and here Watanuki was hitting on a point he'd been dancing around in his own head for several days but not quite found the courage to tackle head on, "if we just _gave_ you to them, they'd all just go away, right? Wouldn't they?"

"It's a long shot," said Doumeki thoughtfully.

" _But it could be true!_ " Watanuki was getting on to a roll with this now. "And think – every time they show up, innocent people are in danger. They could even die! Wouldn't it be _more_ heroic of me to just hand you over and make just one sacrifice if it saved other lives?"

"So you're saying I should martyr myself for the good of the city?"

"I'm saying you wouldn't have to! I could hand you over myself! That's even better than comic book heroics – it's taking responsibility and making the tough decision for the greater good. Would any of your comic book superheros do that?"

"No," said Doumeki, looking him straight in the eye. "But are you going to?"

Watanuki swallowed uncomfortably and wilted internally under his gaze. "Of course not, I don't even know if it would work yet! It's just an example, but the point is, I _could_ do it, and for all you know, _maybe I would!_ "

"It isn't about what you could do," said Doumeki. "It's about what you do. That was in one of the issues too…"

"How can you be… be so calm about this!" Watanuki screeched at him, trying desperately to ignore how badly his whole approach was backfiring. "I just told you that you're the one who's causing all this trouble in the first place! Don't you care?"

"I'm not attracting them deliberately."

"But it's still because of you! Because you're here, thousands of innocent people might be in danger. Aren't you even going to _angst_ about that or something?"

"Ah," said Doumeki. "That's what they do in the comics, isn't it?" and Watanuki wanted to crawl into a small hole and never come back out again.


End file.
